Armenians of Aintab

UEmit Kurt is Polonsky Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and teaches in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at the University of Tel Aviv. He is author of several books in Turkish and English, including The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide.

Kurt's superb reconstruction of how Ottoman Armenians were plundered of their homes and businesses shows that everyone was in on it: from greedy locals to opportunistic regional officials to ruthless central leaders. Sealed in stone as well as blood, their criminal bargain forms the shaky foundations of Turkish society-as such bargains do in many countries. -- A. Dirk Moses, author of The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression A unique contribution and a brilliant crystallization of insights from recent scholarship on the Armenian genocide. Kurt methodically excavates and reconstructs the case of the Armenians of Aintab as a microcosm for the empire before, during, and after the catastrophic events of 1915. The result is a clear, straightforward, and powerful narrative history as illuminating as it is disturbing. Parts of this tale take one's breath away. -- Christine M. Philliou, author of Turkey: A Past Against History A major contribution to our understanding of the Armenian Genocide that will be of great interest to those studying not only the genocide itself but also the role of property expropriation in genocide generally. As Kurt convincingly shows, the Armenian Genocide and its redistribution of wealth to local Turkish and other Muslim groups helped 'nationalize' the economy and create new, local elites. I highly recommend this book. -- Stefan Ihrig, author of Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler In a perfect illustration of a local story yielding broad historical insights, Kurt illuminates the Armenian Question in all its dimensions. In examining the elimination of the Armenians of Aintab by local Muslim elites, he follows the birth of family fortunes built on the looting of Armenian property, and often the murder of neighbors. His book is a prime example of the work of a new generation of Ottoman Empire historians who fearlessly tackle taboo subjects and utilize sources well beyond official archives. -- Raymond H. Kevorkian, author of The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History This important, well-written book sheds much-needed light on the late Ottoman state and the Armenian genocide. Kurt shows that genocide is for the perpetrators a creative as much as a destructive endeavor. As well as eradicating the Armenian community, deportation was also a means of reorienting the Muslim population to a new ideological identity. Plunder was a way of creating a Turkic-Muslim bourgeoisie as a driver of national modernization in a Darwinian world of struggle. -- Donald Bloxham, author of The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians A beautifully written, richly sourced exploration of the expulsion and destruction of the Armenian community of Aintab. Enduring family fortunes were built on state-sanctioned expulsions and theft of assets, a story that could, and should, be told about other post-Ottoman peoples and lands. This is an exemplary late Ottoman social history of a prosperous, but also deeply traumatized, provincial town, and probably the best book ever published about Antep. -- Michael Provence, author of The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East